Frequently asked questions

Everyone benefits from taking some time to examine what is and isn’t working in their life. Therapy can help you work out what’s holding you back in an area of your life, alter unhelpful behaviour patterns and give you strategies for moving forwards. It can also help children and adults to process trauma, or difficult or anxiety-inducing emotions.

Therapy can prevent you from reaching crisis point – or can help you build yourself up again if you’ve already been through a crisis.

A clinical psychologist is interested in the functioning of the mind. Clinical psychologists will use talking therapy to tackle emotional problems and mental ill health, but will also have expertise in dealing with learning disabilities and neurodevelopmental conditions.

Yes. We see clients online and in person, in our South London office. You are welcome to choose whichever works best for you.

Before beginning a course of therapy, you’ll meet your psychologist for an initial assessment. We’ll discuss the issues that brought you to therapy and what your aims are for the treatment. Where the therapy is for a child, this assessment will be with the parents and the child. This assessment will give you a sense of what therapy involves, and will provide an opportunity to ask any questions you have.

You are, of course, free to end your therapy whenever you want – though we would recommend working with your psychologist to reach a positive concluding point.

This varies greatly from person to person, and will also depend upon why you are seeking therapy and what you bring to your sessions.

We are happy to offer longer-term work when it is needed. If your health insurance is covering the cost of sessions, then we will request as many sessions as we feel you need, making ongoing requests for more sessions if necessary. Insurance companies tend to be very amenable to such requests.

We offer family therapy, which can be attended by children and their parents or carers, or by adult members of a family. Feel free to contact us to find out more about how we can help you.

We do not currently offer couples therapy. For that, we would recommend that you contact specialist relationship-counselling organisations, such as Relate.

It is important to us to tailor treatment to our clients’ needs, so we’ll draw up a personal treatment plan for you after meeting for an initial assessment. However, we tend to see most clients on a weekly basis.

Yes: everything that is said in a therapy session is treated with the utmost confidence. We do, however, have a statutory responsibility to report anything that may result in significant harm to you or to anyone else.

We are not an emergency service and we cannot work with individuals in crisis. If you are actively suicidal or require medical attention for self-harm, we recommend that you contact your GP, or ring 999 in an emergency.

A list of organisations, such as the Samaritans, that do work with individuals in crisis, is available here.

Dr Anindita Sarkar, founder of Affiniti+, has more than two decades’ worth of experience in the NHS, working with children, young people and adults. Any clinical psychologist or therapist employed by Affiniti+ or renting our clinic rooms will be trained to a high standard and registered with their professional bodies.

Not at all – we welcome self-referrals.

However, your health insurance may stipulate that you need a GP referral before you can claim the costs of your treatment.

We offer appointments from Monday to Friday. Our earliest available appointment is at 10am, and our latest is at 7pm. All times given are in GMT/BST.

Absolutely – we offer online sessions. The only constraint would be whether your time zone is compatible with our working hours.

If your health insurance is covering the cost of sessions, then we will request as many sessions as we feel you need, making ongoing requests for more sessions if necessary. Insurance companies tend to be very amenable to such requests.